In Defense of Environmentalism

The Betrayal of Science and Reason is the most important rejoinder to date to the “brownlash” (as the Ehrlichs call it) of anti-environmental writing. The bulk of the book is devoted to a systematic refutation of the main theses of the anti-environmental crusade. As such, it is indispensable reading for everyone concerned with the environmental debate, especially those who believe that the global ecological crisis is a mirage. However, although the book is successful in advancing the green position and discrediting the brown, it is disingenuous on the subject of environmentalism’s own streak of antiscientific bias. If the strengths of the book lie in what the Ehrlichs say, its problems arise from what they leave out.

The book’s primary aim is to document the fact that a widespread scientific consensus now exists on a series of ecological issues, including the dangers of global warming, stratospheric ozone depletion, population growth, and the worldwide extinction crisis. In this, the authors are strikingly successful. While acknowledging progress on some fronts, the Ehrlichs argue compellingly that the overall outlook remains grim. Some of their opponents’ cases are thoroughly demolished. For instance, Julian Simon’s credulous contention that demographic expansion can safely continue for the “next 7 billion years” is thoroughly rebutted. The anti-environmentalists have a stronger case in regard to climate change, but here too the authors assemble compelling evidence that the problem is real. On the subject of toxic wastes and their effects on human health, however, the outcome is less clear. Such reputable scholars as Bruce Ames and the late Aaron Wildavsky have made a strong case that trace amounts of toxic substances are not necessarily harmful. Although there are good reasons to side with the Ehrlichs and advocate a precautionary approach, a scientific consensus on this issue has yet to be reached.

Why the brownlash works

The authors also undertake a secondary project: to explain why the brownlash has been so successful. Although they deny the existence of a grand conspiracy, the Ehrlichs do see vested interests at work. Chemical, oil, paper, mining, and forestry companies, fearing expensive environmental regulation, have sought to discredit the scientific foundation on which such reforms rest. Their typical strategy is to deplore environmental emotionalism and champion dispassionate science in the abstract, while promoting selected scientific findings that support their own anti-environmental stance. In the worst cases, the Ehrlichs imply, phony findings are produced by dishonest researchers seeking fat contracts and consulting fees. More often, however, the brownlash operates by promoting the views of a few legitimate scientists without mentioning that their positions contradict a broad scientific consensus. Contrarian environmental science must be taken seriously, the Ehrlichs argue, but it cannot stand alone as the basis of reasonable environmental policy.

The Ehrlichs also maintain that journalists often act, wittingly or not, as accomplices in the brownlash. In story after story, contrarian views are portrayed out of context, with no explanation given of their lack of credibility within the larger scientific community. Journalists often push anti-environmental positions for their novelty value. “Controversy, exaggeration, and scandal sell,” the Ehrlichs say, while “stories about the gradual deterioration of our environment do not.”

Readers of this calmly argued book are likely to conclude that the environmental movement, unlike its opposition, rests squarely on science and reason. Such a portrayal, however, is based on a highly selective representation of contemporary U.S. environmentalism. There is no discussion, for example, of how pro-environmental journalism itself is often guilty of controversy, exaggeration, and scandal. The Ehrlichs ought to know better; they themselves have not always been above promoting eco-alarmism by resorting to exaggeration. Even in the present work, which is admirably restrained overall, there are traces of this rhetorical strategy. Consider the treatment of Gregg Easterbrook’s A Moment on the Earth-hardly a hard-core anti-environmental work. In devoting most of a detailed appendix to cataloging Easterbrook’s errors, the Erlichs simply go overboard.

Most of The Betrayal of Science and Reason strikes a deliberately reasonable tone, attempting to make sweeping environmental reforms palatable to a broad spectrum of the electorate. The authors praise the market system, uphold capitalism, and support market-oriented approaches to pollution reduction. They also take corporate environmentalism seriously, lauding such an unlikely candidate as Monsanto Corporation. Advancing a surprisingly moderate political agenda, the Ehrlichs imply that the common depiction of environmentalists as anticapitalist radicals is little more than a brown delusion. The market must be restrained-as Adam Smith himself recognized-but it is an indispensable foundation for a sustainable economic order. The authors also praise economists who consider environmental issues and criticize those who attempt to drive a wedge between economists and ecologists. Sensible environmental regulation, they repeatedly argue, in no way threatens the U.S. economy.

Half-hearted embrace

The Ehrlichs’ embrace of capitalism, however, remains half-hearted. They are still suspicious of economic growth and harshly criticize conventional economic analysis. More important, they never fundamentally disavow their own well-established antigrowth positions. Although they admit a few previous errors (for instance, they acknowledge underestimating the potential for technological innovation and substitution and say that they have been “remiss in not emphasizing sufficiently what good news there is”), in general they refuse to retract. As recently as 1990, these authors contended that “economic growth is the disease, not the cure” (emphasis in original) and that the United States ought to “return to . . . handwork, [de-emphasizing] mass production in both industry and agriculture.” With the Ehrlichs attacking the very foundations of the modern economy, it is hardly surprising that brownlash writers have concluded that environmentalism, of the Ehrlich variety, is incompatible with economic prosperity.

Remarkably, the authors stand by even the famous opening lines of their early book The Population Bomb: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now . . .” This prediction, they claim, was substantially correct; hundreds of millions remain hungry and many continue to starve. Hunger is indeed still with us; moreover, the “population bomb” is still ticking, and the fact that increasing human numbers are destroying biological diversity is virtually unassailable. But The Population Bomb predicted an imminent ecological apocalypse that simply did not occur. Food production has in fact kept pace with population growth over the past three decades, making the Ehrlichs’ stubborn defense puzzling. Surely they would be better off admitting that their earlier warnings were grossly overstated.

Crying wolf too often?

Instead, they argue that alarmism has direct benefits. Their own dire predictions, the Ehrlichs contend, may have helped reduce the intensity of famine by encouraging the development of relief efforts. This point is important. Mythology tells us that Cassandra’s fate was to be always right but never believed; in the modern world, it seems to some that Cassandras are always believed but never right. But if doomsayers are heeded, their messages can help avert the very disasters that they foresee. The apocalyptic environmental writing of the 1960s and 1970s inspired the legislation that has brought us the (limited) good news that we can now celebrate. The problem is that this tactic becomes self-canceling when used to excess. Foretelling a population bomb made sense in 1968, but writing of an already detonated bomb, as the Ehrlichs did in 1990, was clearly an exercise in crying wolf. Additional credibility has since been lost in ill-advised eco-crusades against such minor dangers as electromagnetic fields. The Ehrlichs now argue, with good evidence, that hormone-mimicking chemicals present a massive environmental threat, but how many will listen this time?

For the most part, the Ehrlichs’ present tactic is to sidestep alarmism and instead defend a sober environmentalism founded on science and reason. What the Ehrlichs do not acknowledge is the unflattering evidence that antiscientific attitudes have infected large segments of the environmental movement. A number of highly influential environmental philosophers and activists actually equate the pursuit of science with the “death of nature” and contend that reason itself has estranged us from the natural world, setting us on a path to sure destruction. Although such views have not infiltrated the laboratories of environmental scientists, they have spread widely through the green political community.

Remarkably, one finds nothing of this in the present book; the environmental movement depicted here is based entirely on science and reason. Why have the Ehrlichs ignored the pointedly antiscientific rhetoric of much eco-radical writing? Being extremely well-read, they cannot possibly be unaware of this literature. It is also doubtful that they find it too trivial to merit attention, for the brownlash writings that the Ehrlichs take on derive much of their strength from arraying themselves against the irrationalist and neo-Luddite sentiments of the more radical greens. Only in this way can extreme anti-environmentalists assume, however inappropriately, the mantle of science.

My only guess is that the authors chose to overlook antiscientific sentiments within the environmental movement out of a desire not to offend its more radical members. The Ehrlichs have long demonstrated great courage in combating anti-environmentalists, but it is another thing altogether to take on one’s partners in the struggle for change. Were they to have condemned environmentalists’ antiscience rhetoric, they would quickly have been branded as traitors to the movement. I know from experience how unpleasant such an experience can be. Regrettably, however, the resulting lacuna prevents them from fully explaining the success of the brownlash movement. Environmentalism can persuasively be portrayed as wildly out of touch with U.S. life precisely because scores of recent books argue that science lies at the root of the global crisis, that high technology must be abandoned, that the market is inimical to nature, and that capitalism by its own immutable logic will destroy the earth.

Polls consistently show that environmentalism still commands broad support in the United States. But if the movement is to go beyond symbolic acts and rearguard actions, it will have to reconsider the political strategies and rhetorical modes that have been its mainstays. Specifically, it must get in step with the public’s race to the political center. For example, the Ehrlichs’ main policy prescription is the imposition of steep carbon taxes on fossil fuels, which they must know is a nonstarter in today’s political climate. Yet they never discuss how to make this strategy palatable-say by pairing it with an income tax cut, especially for the middle class. Staking out such a centrist position, which can appeal to moderate conservatives as well as traditional liberals, may strike many committed environmentalists as weak-kneed defeatism, but it offers the only real hope for enacting the deep reforms that are needed. Reaffirming environmentalism’s historical alliance with science and reason is necessary for the development of a genuine eco-realism, even if it involves alienating the self-proclaimed deep ecologists who see the scientific revolution as humanity’s original sin. The Ehrlichs have taken a major step in this direction. I only wish that they would finish the journey. In doing so, they might lose a few friends and suffer some nasty insults, but they would greatly help the cause to which they have courageously devoted their careers.